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Boston suspect faces life in prison

Emma Alberici
Tue Apr 23 23:25:00 EST 2013

Christopher Swift, Adjunct Professor of National Security Studies at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service discusses the Boston bombing plus the plan to derail a Canadian train . He says that because of the number of charges against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev he is likely to remain in prison for the rest of his life.

Transcript

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER: To discuss the apparent spike in terror activity, I was joined a short time ago from Washington by Christopher Swift who is the adjunct Professor of national security studies at Georgetown University. He's also a fellow of the Centre of National Security Law at the University of Virginia. He's still a practising attorney. Before entering legal practice, Doctor Swift served in the US treasury department's office of foreign assets control where he tracked international transactions involving terrorist syndicates.

Christopher Swift, thanks so much for joining us.

CHRISTOPHER SWIFT, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR: It's a pleasure to be with you again.

EMMA ALBERICI: Can I begin in Canada where we've heard that this attempted terror plot has been foiled by police. Now this is the first known Al Qaeda planned attack in Canada. The two men who are now in custody are not Canadian nationals. What do you think is the significance of that?

CHRISTOPHER SWIFT: Well, there's, there's two significant trends that we're seeing with the Al Qaeda movement today. The first is the localisation of the global jihad and we see that with the Al Qaeda franchises in places like North Africa and Yemen where I was doing field research this summer. But the second and perhaps even more important trend is the individualisation of the global jihad, and I think that's the phenomenon we're dealing with here in Canada with these two individuals who have been arrested. The most important thing to note here is it's not clear that they were part of an organisation but it does appear that they were receiving guidance and support at least in terms of directions on how to conduct operations from Al Qaeda individuals allegedly in Iran. It's different from the patterns we've seen in the past where individuals would fly somewhere and they'd join up with Al Qaeda or an affiliated organisation in a training camp. Now it's much more sort of on a consulting or contractor basis with people outsourcing this sort of violence via the Internet.

EMMA ALBERICI: As you've mentioned, this is said to have been planned by Al Qaeda in Iran, what relationship exists between Al Qaeda and Iran?

CHRISTOPHER SWIFT: Well, look, there is some major tensions between Al Qaeda and Iran. As a general rule militants in the Salafi Jihadi tradition of which Al Qaeda is the exemplar, have no patience or time for Shia Muslims, especially Shias of the kind that are currently ruling Iran. So the notion they have some sort of ideological resonance is laughable at the very least. These two groups were fighting each other rather viciously in Iraq. We see similar types of groups or groups with similar types of religious and ideological persuasions fighting one another in Syria. so We need to be dubious of allegations of you know, a strong operational connection between Al Qaeda and Iran. Moving forward. But it is true none the less that both groups are - the State of Iran and Al Qaeda do have sort of an opportunistic relationship with one another sometimes, usually at a very tactical level, and there has been a small cohort of Al Qaeda operatives sheltering in Iran for several years now and it's quite plausible that those individuals could have reached out to these individuals in Canada via the Internet.

EMMA ALBERICI: ok let's move on to Boston. Now, the surviving bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction. Is he likely to face the death penalty?

CHRISTOPHER SWIFT: It's not clear yet whether he'll face the death penalty but even in the absence of a decision to move forward with the death penalty, he's definitely facing life in prison. Most likely, without the possibility of parole. And look, the weapon of mass destruction charge, if I can take off my professor hat here for a moment and put on my lawyer hat, is only one of many charges that is likely to be filed against him in the coming days and weeks. We have multiple individuals that were killed, we have an attempted killing of a police officer on the transit system in Boston, we have multiple injuries, we have resisting arrest, we have the use of explosive devices against police during the car chase, we have the theft of an automobile. I mean there are plenty of potential charges that one can put on the criminal complaint here. I think it's very unlikely, regardless of whether the death penalty is at issue, that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is going to see, is going to see much time out of jail in his lifetime.

EMMA ALBERICI: Do you suspect we'll see a plea bargain emerge here, that the Justice Department would likely offer this man the possibility of escaping the death penalty by agreeing to provide information about any involvement by others in this plot?

CHRISTOPHER SWIFT: You know, it depends. The first, the first question is whether or not there is any involvement by others. You know, up until the time that I learned that the older brother had travelled to Russia recently I was pretty certain that this particular event was an instance of that individualisation of global jihad. And more specifically, the self identification and self radicalisation process that usually happens over the Internet. Sometimes that process happens and it involves an overseas mentor or facilitator. A good example of that was the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan who was mentored by the Yemeni American cleric (inaudible). Sometimes that involves an individual going to a trading camp and getting training before coming back to the United States. A good example there is Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber who received some training from the Tariki Taliban in Pakistan, but wasn't actually a member of that group. So at this juncture it's too soon to know whether there is that sort of international facilitator or training connection and if, you know, Tsarnaev doesn't have that sort of information there would be no basis for making that sort of a plea. I think it's much more likely that, that there - to the extent that the Justice Department would be willing to take the death penalty off the table, it would be because he is So relatively young and because his older brother appears to be the prime mover. If I was defence counsel in that case that's where I'd be positioning myself right now.

EMMA ALBERICI: ok we're going to explore the links, or the potential links with Russia shortly but I wanted to continue along the vain of this particular suspect and what happens from here with him. He is cooperating, we know, with police so far. Do you expect that to continue once he gets a lawyer?

CHRISTOPHER SWIFT: Yes, I do. And here's why. If you had an individual who was so thoroughly hardened and thoroughly radicalised that they had to go out in a blaze of glory, then we wouldn't have had the sort of situation we have now. It wouldn't have been possible to capture him. I think it's much more likely that this is an individual who was involved in sort of an identity search or identity formation process, who was vulnerable to radicalisation given his past experiences in life and his brother's obvious radicalisation. But the fact that he's speaking with FBI investigators now is - and the fact that he decided to surrender rather than go out in a blaze of glory is indicative that he does have an interest in living and that's very different from the pattern of radicalisation we've seen with much more hardened individuals and other locales. Especially locales like Afghanistan or Iraq where a young man of this age is pushed into suicide bombing.

EMMA ALBERICI: Given the United States is a country with a right to bear arms, what are the likely weapons charges that he might face, especially given he was found with some, some pretty powerful rifles?

CHRISTOPHER SWIFT: Right, well powerful rifles perhaps by British or Australian standards but not necessarily by American standards. Look, we have a different tradition in the United States, it comes from our history of being first a colonial nation and then a frontier nation. We're currently in the process of trying to work out an equitable balance between individual freedom and public safety in the United States. I think you've seen that debate rage on in a rather aggressive way since, since the shootings in Connecticut. But the weapons charges are not going to be based on possession of weapons as best as I can understand. It's going to be based on the misuse of those weapons. It's going to be based, you know, not on ownership but on violent action. In the United States we tend to charge people for the bad acts they do rather than the things that they have or the thoughts that they may have. And I think if you see weapons charges in this case that aren't the weapons of mass destructions charges that have already been filed they'll probably be along those lines.

EMMA ALBERICI: If we now turn our focus to Russia, Tamerlan, the older brother as you mentioned earlier, did spend six months in Chechnya and Dagestan just last year. Do you think that is likely to prove significant?

CHRISTOPHER SWIFT: It could prove significant in so far as it raises questions about these two other patterns of radicalisation I was discussing earlier. The first one involving a potential facilitator or mentor, and the second one involving some sort of training. I'm a little bit dubious about the third scenario. I've been out on the Chechnya/Dagestan border doing field work on the rebel movement there, I've run up and down those mountains with a backpack and if you look at the local insurgent group there it's called the Caucuses Emirate. There's between 200 and 400, sort of two company sized unit. There aren't very many of them. Sometimes that number goes up to around 1,000 on a seasonal basis, perhaps as high as 1,200 if there's something particularly interesting going on in a given year. But it's a very remote group in a very remote area. Those areas are hard to get to. And look that group doesn't have much support from the indigenous population in those areas. What people are highly suspicious of the Russian Government in highland Chechnya, in highland Dagestan, they're also not terribly excited about the jihadis. That ideology doesn't resonate well with their indigenous traditions, and it doesn't resonate well with their particular variant of Sufi Islam. So you know, I'm a little bit dubious but I want to see what the facts tell us as we move forward. One thing I would be very cautious - very careful about though, is relying on Russian representations of radical Islam in the region, rather than relying on facts we're able to develop ourselves. Sometimes the Russians give us very good information about bad people intending to do bad things, but in other instances there's a political agenda at play and the Putin Government in Russia has always had an interest in trying to connect Chechnya to the global jihadi movement notwithstanding the fact there's not many operational links between them.

EMMA ALBERICI: And there is of course the fact that the US hasn't exactly been sympathetic to the plight of the Chechnian separatists?

CHRISTOPHER SWIFT: Well Not sympathetic to the separatists and certainly not cept - sympathetic to the Sufi militants that proceeded the separatists as that conflict raged on for 15 years and the movement became more and more radicalised. We have to remember this conflict really began in 1994 with the first Chechen war. That was initially a nationalist separatist conflict. You had a group of moderate Islamists and Chechen Democrats who wanted a constitutional Republic, something along the lines of Turkey. As the two wars raged on however, that particular cohort within the resistance became - within the rebel movement became more and more marginalised as (inaudible) and some of the more radicalised and ideologically globalised individuals engaged in some pretty vicious and horrible provocative terrorist attacks. And that reframing of that conflict, you know, around that ideology and around those terrorist images really allowed, you know, extremists on both sides of the conflict to turn into something very different from its true nature. You know It's interesting to note how this radicalisation process is affecting trends we see elsewhere in the world. Syria's a great example of that. The longer that war drags on the more we see a - what was initially a movement for democratic reform and then initially a moderate to secular Sunni rebellion against the, the Assad regime turn into something that's very, very different, especially as Al Qaeda syndicates and people espousing the jihadi ideology start to colonise that conflict and try and turn it into something that's theirs rather than something that's authentically Syrian. All goes to the argument that these conflicts need to be resolved politically as quickly as possible before they metastasise.

EMMA ALBERICI: now Two Republicans have accused the FBI of an intelligence failure over the Boston bombings. They've learned of course, that Russia put a request to the police in the US in 2011 about the older brother's links to extremist groups. Now are there any questions in your mind that the FBI has to answer around this?

CHRISTOPHER SWIFT: Well look, they're going to do this oversight and they need to do this oversight because it's just good practice, its good professional practice to see if there's anything that they missed. And so the FBI will do that diligence and they should. But the characterisation of this particular instance - incident by representative Peter King and by others who are eager to show that there's been some sort of breakdown in our intelligence surveillance processes here in the United States, really ignores a couple of very fundamental points. The first is, as I mentioned earlier, the Russian security services sometimes give us good information about bad people intending to do bad things. But more often than not especially when it comes to Chechen refugees in the United States, they've given us very bad information about good people who are trying to remake a life for themselves outside a conflict zone. Sometimes they've done that to keep the issue alive in people's minds, sometimes they've done that to harass particular political activists or dissidents they have a problem with. So look, After 10 years of the Russian Federation crying wolf a little bit on Chechnya you can understand why the FBI would be somewhat dubious about some of the claims that were brought forward. The other point I want to make though is that the standard, the legal standard for continuing a terrorism investigation in Russia is substantially lower than it would be in the United States. I mean just attending a particular mosque or being seen to be with a particular individual or having a cousin or an extended family member who's joined the rebels in the mountains, that's prima facie cause for terror linkage under Russian law. In the United States we have probable cause. Unless the police or FBI can establish there's some reasonable, rational nexus between an individual's behaviour rather than their beliefs, and a potential threat to public safety they can't continue an investigation. And if you look at the interviews from all of the people who went to college and high school with these two young men, you know, there's no indication overtly anyway, in terms of their public lives, in terms of how they were presenting themselves to their community, that they were anything other than just religious Muslims. You know, in Russia they don't really distinguish between the militant and the devout and it makes it very difficult for them to do certain things. In the United States our constitution requires us to distinguish between the militant and devout, notwithstanding what opportunistic politicians on Capitol Hill might say.

EMMA ALBERICI: We also learned that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was the 5th man since September 11 to be suspected of committing terrorism while under investigation by the FBI?

CHRISTOPHER SWIFT: That's, that is a possibility and it's something that the FBI's going to look at going forward. But again, you know, we have to ask ourselves what sort of society we want to live in. If I take off my professor hat and put on my constitutional lawyer hat, I can tell you that our system where we require probable cause, where we require some sort of factual nexus and where we assess behaviour rather than beliefs, you know, does leave us more vulnerable than a society like Russia. It leaves us comparatively more vulnerable than a society like France or Spain where they have a tighter process for assessing these sort of things. On the civil law system is very different from the common law system we apply in the United States and Canada and Australia and Britain. But here in the Anglosphere we have this tradition of probable cause, we have these constitutional protections and the presumption that we have with it is that a more open and free society is going to be more responsive and resilient in the event that you actually have a crisis and I think you see the benefit of that kind of system in Boston this past week where rather than being afraid of the Government, as people are in the North Caucuses, especially in Chechnya and Dagestan. The people in Boston were actively collaborating with the government to help run these men to ground and bring them to trial.

EMMA ALBERICI: We have to leave it there. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us this evening on Lateline, this morning your time, thanks very much.